Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

USA Today Sports Media Group

Sport

Tim Weaver

NFL Power Rankings Week 4: New teams at the top and the bottom

USA TODAY Sports NFL USA TODAY Network Andrew Nelles Brad Rempel Brock Purdy Cary Edmondson Danielle Parhizkaran Geoff Burke Houston (Organization)

In our Week 3 NFL power rankings we had the Dallas Cowboys at No. 1 and the Arizona Cardinals at No. 32. Naturally, when they met on Sunday Arizona pulled off an upset, taking down Dallas 28-16 at home.

That necessitated a big shakeup on both ends of our power rankings this week. Before we get into the rankings, let’s break down the biggest changes and non-changes on the list.

Buy Seahawks Tickets

The worst of the worst

It wasn’t difficult to find a new team for the spot at the bottom of the rankings, as the Chicago Bears have now established themselves as the league’s absolute worst team by a comfortable margin. These Bears were already terrible defensively and offensively they’re getting worse every week. At this rate, head coach Matt Eberflus won’t make it to midseason.

The Denver Broncos are also looking pretty haggard and now they’re ranked No. 31, having given up 70 points to the Miami Dolphins this week. While Russell Wilson appears to be getting back into form, everything around him seems to be imploding.

Elsewhere, Dallas had to suffer a serious drop-off after laying an egg in Arizona. They’ve fallen from the No. 1 spot down to sixth. However, the worst drop of the week belonged to the Jacksonville Jaguars, who were supposed to be a real contender in the AFC but don’t look quite ready to break into that club yet after being upset by the Houston Texans.

The biggest risers

Losing to Houston may not be a huge embarrassment this year, though. As expected, C.J. Stroud is the most pro-ready QB in the 2023 class and is playing very sharp ball for a rookie. After upsetting Jacksonville, Houston has jumped up several spots.

Other teams on the rise include the Green Bay Packers, who may have something in Jordan Love, the Arizona Cardinals, who are much better than they have any right to be given their roster, the Indianapolis Colts, who upset the top-10 Baltimore Ravens and the Seattle Seahawks.

Seahawks

After losing Week 1 to the Los Angeles Rams, we had Seattle ranked No. 15 in the league. Sunday’s win over Carolina combined with last week’s overtime victory against the Detroit Lions has pushed them back into the top 10 where they were after the draft. This team is talented and deep where it matters, their run defense is radically improved and Geno Smith has picked up where he left off.

Tough to read teams

A few teams remain very difficult to read at this relatively early point in the regular season. At the top of the list are the Cincinnati Bengals, who are better than their record but still have yet to post a convincing win. The biggest puzzle of all is the Cleveland Browns – who are obscenely loaded all over, especially defensively. However, they’re also getting spurts of bizarre and terrible QB play from Deshaun Watson – who may never get back to the level he was playing at in Houston early in his career. As such, we’ve decided to keep both Cincinnati and Cleveland in the same place from last week. Hopefully with more time we’ll figure out what both teams are about.

Why not Niners?

While the San Francisco 49ers have as strong case for the top spot, they’re getting penalized due to quarterback questions. Brock Purdy’s raw numbers are excellent, but he’s also leaving a lot of yards (and points) on the field with bad misses. Their ceiling could be a lot higher with a more competent starter. While Purdy’s issues haven’t cost them a game yet, that’s likely to change as the season goes on. As long as they remain unsettled in the backfield, No. 2 is as high as we’re willing to put them.

By contrast, the team that’s now first in our power rankings is getting better quarterback play than anybody else in the NFL by a massive margin – to say nothing of a new wunderkind play caller head coach. The No. 1 ranked Miami Dolphins and the combined brilliance of Mike McDaniels and Tua Tagovailoa are finally giving us an answer to the question of what the Niners would look like if Kyle Shanahan actually had a talented QB.

Here’s how we rank all 32 NFL teams heading into Week 4…